SBF's never posted 15k-word Twitter thread 🙆♀️
SBF's never posted 15k-word Twitter thread 🙆♀️
Sam Bankman-Fried blames everyone but himself for FTX's collapse. Real-World Assets on-chain value reaches ATH of $3B. Japan to allow startups to raise funds with crypto assets. Mark Cuban gets hacked
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A 250 pages of writings penned since his house arrest in December. A draft of a thread on X (formerly Twitter) that he never posted, but found it’s way on the NYT pages. Sam Bankman-Fried has poured it all in there.
“I’m broke and wearing an ankle monitor and one of the most hated people in the world. There will probably never be anything I can do to make my lifetime impact net positive.”
Leaked Manuscript Finds its Way to the Public: This revealing manuscript came to light after being leaked to crypto journalist and YouTuber Tiffany Fong. Fong, in turn, shared the contents with the New York Times, leading to the publication of select portions of the material this week.
Facing Serious Legal Charges: Bankman-Fried's predicament is compounded by the fact that he is in custody, awaiting trial scheduled for next month. He faces a multitude of charges, including wire fraud, money laundering, misappropriation of customer funds, and violations of campaign finance laws.
Defensive Tweets and Justifications for FTX's Collapse: Some of Bankman-Fried's writings take the form of a planned series of tweets meant to justify his actions in the catastrophic collapse of FTX and its associated entities, which marked the largest bankruptcy in the industry's history.
Deflection of Blame onto Colleagues: Bankman-Fried attempts to deflect blame for the collapse onto several colleagues, most notably his ex-girlfriend and former CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison. He is accused of funneling customer funds to Alameda Research to bolster its balance sheet after the trading firm incurred significant losses on multiple trades.
Candid Remarks on Ex-Girlfriend's Role: In one document shared with Fong, Bankman-Fried writes about Ellison: "She continually avoided talking about risk management — dodging my suggestions — until it was too late. [...] Every time that I reached out with suggestions, it just made her feel worse. I'm sure that being exes didn't help."
Claim of Ignorance and Denial of Misusing Customer Funds: Elsewhere in the leaked material, Bankman-Fried claims ignorance regarding Alameda's appropriation of customer funds through an account labeled "fiat@" until he overheard a group of his employees, including Ellison, discussing it in the spring of 2022. The former CEO maintains his innocence, asserting that he never misused customer money.
Bankman-Fried's Residence and Legal Proceedings: Prior to having his bail revoked, Sam Bankman-Fried had spent approximately eight months at his parents' California home. During this time, he reportedly drafted the tweets and documents mentioned earlier. It remains uncertain whether these documents are in the possession of prosecutors or will be utilised in his upcoming criminal trials. The first of these trials is set to commence on October 3rd, where Bankman-Fried faces 12 counts related to fraud at FTX and Alameda.
Guilty Pleas from Colleagues: In contrast to Bankman-Fried, his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh have already pleaded guilty to similar fraud charges. Bankman-Fried, however, has entered a not guilty plea for all counts against him.
TTD Numbers 🔢
$3 billion
Real-World Assets (RWA) On-Chain Value Reaches All-Time High.
Real-World Asset Tokenisation Thrives Despite Crypto Market Challenges
RWA tokenisation remains a prominent and exciting narrative in the crypto world, despite market downturns. These are tangible assets from the physical world traded on blockchain platforms.
Growth Amidst a Bear Market: Real-world asset tokenisation (RWA) is a growing trend in the crypto space, even during a crypto bear market. The value of tokenised assets is at an all-time high and continues to rise.
Bold Prediction: Analyst 'Viktor DeFi' predicts RWA tokenisation will exceed $10 billion by 2024.
Record-Breaking Value: Galaxy Research reports that tokenised real-world assets reached a record $3.1 billion in August, including gold, equities, money markets, carbon offsets, treasuries, real estate, and private credit.
Yield-Driven Growth: The expansion of RWAs is fuelled by on-chain demand for off-chain yield sources. Yield-bearing RWAs have grown by $1.44 billion, constituting 87% of the $1.66 billion increase this year.
Asset Composition: Gold and precious metals make up 37% of total tokenised assets, money markets 23%, and tokenised treasuries have surged by 450% in 2023, reaching $630 million.
Tokenised Asset Coalition: Centrifuge and Goldfinch have reached all-time highs in active loan values, aligning with the Tokenised Asset Coalition (TAC) formed on September 7, which includes industry giants like Circle, Coinbase, Aave, and Goldfinch. TAC aims to educate, standardise, and innovate in the tokenised asset space.
ANZ Tests Tokenised Asset Transfer with Chainlink
Banking Innovation: ANZ, one of Australia's largest institutional banks, has tested cross-chain transfers of tokenised assets using Chainlink technology. This technology has the potential to revolutionise banking operations.
Successful Test: ANZ collaborated with Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to simulate the purchase of tokenised assets, using digital Australian dollars and ANZ-issued stablecoins. The test showcases the potential for cross-chain transactions in both public and private blockchains.
TTD HelloCrypto 👋🏻
Japan to Allow Startups to Raise Funds with Crypto Assets
Japanese government plans to permit startups to raise public funds through crypto assets instead of stocks, reports The Nikkei. This applies specifically to Investment Business Limited Partnerships (LPs), marking a shift in Japan's approach to digital assets.
Regulatory Changes in Japan: Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) took a significant step on August 31 by seeking to amend cryptocurrency-related tax codes. The goal is to exempt local businesses from the year-end "unrealised gains" tax on cryptocurrencies, indicating a more active role in cryptocurrency regulation.
Prime Minister's Commitment to Web3: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida emphasised Japan's commitment to fostering the Web3 industry during a keynote address at the WebX conference in Tokyo. He highlighted the potential of Web3 to transform the internet and drive social change.
Binance's Reentry into Japan: Binance confirmed its services for Japanese crypto users starting from August, following its acquisition of the local exchange platform Sakura Exchange Bitcoin in November 2022. This move marked Binance's return to the Japanese market.
TTD Recovery 🫴
Paxos Recovers $500,000 "Fat Finger" Bitcoin Fee Overpayment
Overpayment Recovery: Paxos, a crypto service provider, successfully recovered a mistaken overpayment of a Bitcoin transaction fee amounting to approximately $500,000.
Blockchain Data Confirmation: On-chain data analysis by The Block Research confirmed that the wallet responsible for the 19.8 BTC overpayment rectified the error on September 15. F2Pool, the mining pool involved, also confirmed the refund via social media.
F2Pool's Statement: F2Pool stated, "We would like to provide an update regarding the recent mistakenly overpaid ~20 BTC transaction fee we received. After conducting identity verification, we have confirmed the ownership of these BTC, and fully refunded the fee to the sender, Paxos."
The Initial Transaction: On September 10, an anonymous entity paid an extravagant transaction fee of 0.008 BTC (equivalent to $200) to move a small amount of Bitcoin, making it one of the costliest USD-based Bitcoin transactions. Subsequently, the wallet was linked to Paxos, which disclosed its cooperation with the miner, F2Pool, to rectify the situation.
TTD Hack 🛑
Billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, recently fell victim to a cryptocurrency scam, losing approximately $870,000.
The suspicious activity within a wallet labeled as "Mark Cuban 2" on the Ethereum blockchain was initially noticed by an on-chain investigator known as WazzCrypto.
Cuban, unaware of these wallet movements, later confirmed the incident.
He explained that he hadn't used his MetaMask wallet for several months and suspects that scammers had been monitoring his actions. In total, Cuban's lost around $870,000 in 10 different cryptocurrencies, including stablecoins and various tokens like Lido staked Ether, SuperRare, and Ethereum Name Service.
Cuban suspects that the scam may have involved a fraudulent version of MetaMask, a popular crypto wallet extension. He had intended to search for "Circle" on Google but inadvertently downloaded a compromised MetaMask version. When attempting to clean up his account on his phone, MetaMask crashed a few times, prompting him to stop. Subsequently, he transferred his assets to Coinbase using a secure authentication dongle.
The incident involving Mark Cuban's crypto loss is part of a recent trend of high-profile crypto scams and hacks.
$41 million drain from Stake.com
$50 million hack of CoinEx.
$700,000 via phishing link on Vitalik Buterin compromised X account.
Despite this setback, Cuban remains active in the decentralised finance (DeFi) space as an investor. However, he has faced challenges in the past, notably losing holdings in the Iron Finance's TITAN stablecoin during the 2021 crypto bull market.
TTD Surfer 🏄
Nvidia AI partner Databricks raises $500M at $43B valuation. In 2021, the company raised $1.6 billion in Series H funding at a valuation of $38 billion.
Celsius and Core Scientific have agreed on a settlement; Celsius will purchase a $45 million mining data centre from Core Scientific for $14 million. Though subject to court approval.
3AC’s Su Zhu, Kyle Davies banned for 9 years by Singapore Monetary Authority. The company hired a hedge fund manager without notifying authorities and then traded crypto with no risk framework in place.
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